9/11 Eight Years Later: Remembering Family, Friends and Neighbors

Originally published in The National Herald, Sept. 17, 2009

NEW YORK–  Although it’s been eight years since the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001, the emotional wounds of that tragic day are still fresh to those impacted on a more personal level. The Greek American community was not insulated from this act of terrorism and continues to pay tribute to the many lives lost and to the loved ones of those lost who suffer with perpetual absence in their lives.

Rev. Fr. Paul P. Panos, parish priest of St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Schenectady, N.Y. told The National Herald he distinctly remembers the events of that day. “I remember I took my kids to school, and at 10 in the morning, I lay down to take a nap,” said Fr. Panos. “Then I got two or three calls to turn on the TV. I was just stunned. I panicked and went to St. Nicholas in Flushing to take my kids out of school and made sure they were safe at home, then I went to my Church [in New Jersey] and I just instinctively opened up the Church; people were coming in left and right.”

Fr. Panos felt compelled to help at the site in any way he could and made his way to the World Trade Center site immediately. “I was kind of addicted to just being there, hoping we’d find somebody. I felt this urgency. Obviously, I’m not a rescue worker, but at the time I was a Naval Reserve chaplain and I was there to offer support with my training as a priest. One of the things they didn’t really show on TV was when the bulldozers would scoop up the rubble and carefully sift for any body parts, which we do a blessing for.”

To honor the memories of 9/11 victims, Fr. Paul initiated a remembrance ceremony. This year’s event, which took place at St. George’s on the anniversary of the tragedy, was well-attended by both parishioners and non-Orthodox attendants alike.

“Our parish is conveniently located across the street from City Hall and I am one of the chaplains for City Council,” he said. “We had the mayor of Schenectady present as well as several city council members, a state senator, a U.S. congressman.”

A portion of the ceremony included a display of a burnt cut-steel cross from Ground Zero given to the reverend by rescue workers.

“Just the experience of walking around and knowing the air of death and destruction, the act of terrorism- it’s kind of rough,” Fr. Panos said. “There were sirens over and over; even now whenever alarms go off [it triggers something in me]. Some memories will never leave you.” Fr. Paul said besides keeping the memory of the victims alive, his primary concern is the rebuilding of St. Nicholas Church which was also destroyed during the attacks.

“I’m very concerned about the [rebuilding], because it better happen,” said Fr. Paul, who often officiated at services at St. Nicholas for Fr. John Romas. “We have every right to be there. So much money was donated by so many people to rebuild the St. Nicholas Church- I do hope it’s not swept under the rug. Granted it’s our Church, but it would be available for all the people to come by who would want to pay the proper respect; it would be a living tribute. If I have to, I will take the collar off and scream as a citizen. We deserve to have that Church rebuilt.”

Fr. Paul, who had a flag thrown in his honor over the nation’s capital for his service to God and his country, added that one of the most difficult losses to accept was the death of his friend, 31 year-old John Katsimatides who was killed in Tower 1 while working as a financial trader for Cantor Fitzgerald.

John’s sister, Anthoula Katsimatides, told The National Herald that the loss of her brother was especially difficult for their family, who were still in the process of mourning the death of John’s brother, Michael Katsimatides who committed suicide in May 1999.

“It’s sad enough to lose one sibling but to lose two in such a short span was just an unbelievable blow, so because we started thinking about doing something for Michael, when John too died, it was a no-brainer that [my family and friends] would start something in their memories,” said Katsimatides, who is president of The Johnny and Mikey Katsimatides Foundation (Jamfoundation.org). Katsimatides said the goal of the foundation is to touch on topics that they supported during their lives, or that have something to do with who they were, including “music education, cancer research, aid for underprivileged youth, suicide prevention and the rights of crime victims.”

Recalling the events of September 11, 2001, Katsimatides said the day was the longest one of her life. “Although I knew my brother was in the downtown area, I had no idea he was working in that building. For the most part, I was extremely hopeful that he would come home because he was a very resilient human being, and a Mac-Gyver of sorts,” said Katsimatides, who at the time, worked for New York’s Governor Pataki. Katsimatides said although eight years have passed, the memory of a loved one is not something one can “get over”.

“You feel it everyday. John would have been 39 years old; I wonder if he would have been married with children, if I would have had nieces or nephews, or an awesome sister-in-law. These are the things you think about,” said Katsimatides, who added it makes it even more difficult that nothing of her brother has been recovered in eight years. “Half the families have not been given anything of their loved ones—ot even a bone fragment. No matter how many years pass, you have that thought: ‘how did he perish’?” Following the events of September 11, Katsimatides served as a sort of the moral compass for the agency that was created to rebuild lower Manhattan, a job she called extremely difficult. “It was very hard because I didn’t represent 7,000 people, I simply represented myself and my family,” she said. “I became a counselor, I met amazing people and have friends I still talk to today, but we all say we’re part of his club that we never signed up for.” Today, Katsimatides sits on the board of directors for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, which is a not-for-profit responsible for oversight of the design, raising the necessary funds, programming and operating the Memorial & Museum being built at the World Trade Center site (www.national911memorial.org). “If you’re not intimately involved in the building process, you’re not aware of the tremendous amount of work and blood sweat and tears that flowed at that site, and I am confident that we will have a truly beautiful memorial dedicated to those people who died.”

Katsimatides said that the one positive thing she’s gained from the devastating experience is the will to live life to its fullest potential.

“People don’t know their impact. They don’t realize their kind of impact that they have, so much so that when they stop coming around you feel that loss,” she said.

The Cookie Queen of Hollywood Stars

Originally published in The National Herald, Jan. 30, 2009

NEW YORK-  Her cookies are not only delectable, they’re aesthetic and conversation-worthy. Shaped like designer handbags, safari animals, replicas of brides and grooms for the perfect wedding favor, and more recently, adorned with illustrations of President Barack Obama in honor of Inauguration Day, Eleni Gianopulos’ confections have satisfied the taste buds and eyes of stars like Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Leonardo DiCaprio. Gianopulos, who is a California-native, launched her booming business, Eleni’s in New York City’s Chelsea Market, in 1996 after inheriting her mother Jeanie’s culinary talents.

 “I came to New York City for the first time when I was 11 years old to visit with my family,” Gianopulos said. “I instantly fell in love with Manhattan and knew it would be where I would ultimately live. Right after I graduated from college, I moved to the Big Apple to pursue a career in publishing. My mother had been teaching the art of Greek cooking for years, often appearing on local San Francisco-area TV stations. Her avid persistence and creativity with spanakopita and baklava made the kitchen a comfortable place to be. Therefore, it only seemed natural for me to turn to the culinary world.”

Gianopulos started selling oatmeal cookies using her mother’s recipe when she first started her business from her NYC apartment. After developing her products, she began selling them to local grocery stores and eventually, she started donating cookies to high-profile events. As her popularity and clientele grew, so did her business.

Gianopulos’ heritage not only played a major role in the kitchen, but in her personal life as well.

“I am third generation Greek Orthodox,” she said. “I was raised in Oakland, California by a family who was tremendously active in the  Greek Orthodox community. My husband, Randall is also Greek Orthodox. We met on Greek Easter in 1987 at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Manhattan, where we still attend today.”

In addition to her marriage, Gianopulos said her greatest accomplishments, aside from her success in the baking industry, are her two children, two-year old William and sixmonth old Sophia. Gianopulos credits her mother and passion for the dessert industry for the success of Eleni’s.

“With my mother’s influence and a profound love for the culinary industry (especially dessert), I wanted to create a field of business and develop a product that was new, unique and most of all—un,”she said. “My recipe for success is a top-quality product made with the finest, all-natural ingredients. You must create something new and unique that the marketplace does not currently offer.”

It is this diligent approach that led to Gianopulos’ impressive tally of Alist clients, projects and seasonal requests. She said, “We have been fortunate enough to work with many corporations, non-profit foundations and celebrities. One of my favorite cookie projects was making a customized gingerbread house for Elton John (resembling his home of course) and shipping it to the United Kingdom.”

She added that another highlight of her career was seeing Leonardo Di-Caprio enjoy her cookies while walking down the red carpet the night of the Academy Awards. For the November 2000 nuptials of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones at the Plaza Hotel, Gianopulos’ team created hand-iced cookies to serve as the couple’s wedding favors. Additionally, she designed Kate Spade handbag-shaped cookies for friend and designer Kate Spade a few years after launching her business. Despite this period of national economic hardship, Gianopulos said she urges young women to become entrepreneurs.

“I always encourage young women to start their own company as I have found my experience to be very rewarding,” she said. “In today’s economy I would encourage any entrepreneur to think of a strategy that doesn’t require intense upfront capital. As a business grows, so do the investments that we contributed. I would recommend specializing in new products that do not require inventory–therefore, you keep risk at a minimum.”

Gianopulos’ current endeavor is designing Academy Award-inspired cookie creations, which are edible image sugar cookies of Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Picture nominees, to be released by the end of the month.

“One of the most exciting times at Eleni’s is Oscar season,” she said. “We take great pride in being the acclaimed bakery for Oscar-themed cookies and cupcakes, specializing in cookies with the actors’ and actress’ faces.”

In 2008, Gianopulos was named one of the Trendsetters of the Year by Modern Bride magazine alongside noteworthy recipients including leading fashion designer Oscar De La Renta, founder of Spanx Sara Blakely, make-up artist Bobbi Brown and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. She sells well over $1 million a year worth of cookies from her store in Chelsea and her cookies are now also sold at Barneys, Dean & Deluca and Saks Fifth Avenue. Gianopulos has recently been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, Newsweek and Harper’s Bazaar. Besides her whimsical cookies, Eleni’s offers colorful cupcakes, brownies, cakes and candy for every occasion, and with nationwide delivery available (www.elenis.com), anyone can enjoy one of Gianopulos’ tasty treats. Eleni’s also accommodates corporate giving. Zagat survey rated Eleni’s as Very Good to Excellent in 2008, for its “amazing workmanship,” “original presentation” and “truly special gifts”. With a knack for edge, an unwavering mentality and a unique style, there’s no stopping this cookie-connoisseur.

Pastides has Roots Both in Queens and Cyprus, President of Univ. of SC Rose From Humble Beginnings

Originally published in The National Herald, Jan. 16, 2010

NEW YORK–  The road from York City to Columbia, South Carolina is a fairly long one, but for University of South Carolina President Dr. Harris Pastides, the distance is trivial when compared to his greater life journey. As the only American-born child of a family that immigrated to Astoria, Queens, from Cyprus in October 1948, Dr. Pastides always had close ties with the Greek community -near and overseas.

“[My parents and sister, Barbara] settled here during the post-World War II period, when farming was devastated in Europe,” Dr. Pastides told The National Herald. “My mother had an older sister who came [to the United States] earlier. I was born in 1954, and I grew up in a bilingual household; I spoke Greek well before I spoke English.”

Dr. Pastides was a long-time member of the St. Demetrios parish in Astoria and even now in Columbia, SC, he’s active at Holy Trinity Church, where he is doing his part to help work on a capital campaign to build a new sanctuary.  At the time Dr. Pastides was growing up in New York, his father worked in restaurants and eventually opened up his own restaurant.

“Essentially, we lived the New York City life and we were a very closeknit family of four,” he said.

After attending Stuyvesant High School, Dr. Pastides went on to the State University of New York at Albany, then to Yale University, here he received two master’s degrees in Public Health and a Ph.D, and met his wife, Patricia Moore-Pastides, in 1977.

“Originally, I was pre-med in college, but it was during the days of the Vietnam War, and so I felt I had a social consciousness that wanted me to do something civic and broad,” Dr. Pastides said. “I learned about public health and I always had a strong biology inclination which migrated to epidemiology, [so I entered the public health field]. I’ve conducted many studies on cancer, and reproductive disorders, and I pursued that in Yale and later in my professional career at the University of Massachusetts.”

But Dr. Pastides didn’t limit his health studies to the American population. Professionally, there were two times in his career that he lived in Greece and Cyprus.

“In 1987, I was a Fulbright scholar and I worked with a very well-known professor, Demetrios Dracopoulos at the University ofAthens medical School,” he said. “I, with my wife and two children, Andrew and Katharine, lived in Athens while working on a study of the Greek diet relative to gall bladder disease in women. At that time, my wife took Greek language lessons and cooking lessons and the children began to learn some Greek.

Then in 2006, the Cyprus Institute invited me to help Cyprus develop a cancer registry so I spent three months with my family in Nicossia, Cyprus working with colleagues on cancer problems.”

The trip was enriching for Dr. Pastides, whose research has been supported by the Centers for Disease Control, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, among others, and has received awards and honors from The National Cancer Institute and the American College of Epidemiology.

The trip was also very enriching for his wife Patricia, who as a result, has a soon-to-be published book on the Greek diet, called “Greek Revival: Cooking for Life”, which talks about the healthful benefits of the Mediterranean diet and the Greek diet.

Dr. Pastides, who was named the University of South Carolina’s 28th president on August 1, 2008, following 10 years of service as a professor, dean and vice president at the university, was a professor of epidemiology and chairman of the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst prior to joining the U. of S.C. team.

“I have always been close to the Greek community – It is a great source of pride for our Greek community in South Carolina to have a Greek leader of a university; it’s a smaller state, so its president has a lot of exposure and public attention, and I’m equally as proud of the Greek community as they are of me.”

Dr. Pastides isn’t the only Greek American administrator at the acclaimed university; Michael D. Amiridis, Ph.D. is Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.

“I am confident to say we are the only major university in America to have a Greek president and provost, and I believe the Greek embassy is planning to invite us to collaborate with other American universities who also have Greek administrators to see if we can develop closer ties with Greece.”

According to Dr. Pastides, his humble climb to the top of the academic ladder was not planned out.

“Having been the first member of my family to go to college, I think it’s fair [to say that becoming president] was the last thing on my mind,” he said.  “For most of my early years, I was always active in student government, and in graduate school at Yale I was quite inspired by the president at the time, Angelo Bartlett “Bart” Giamatti, who is now passed. As a grad school leader, I had the opportunity to talk, debate and work with him, which gave me a better perspective on what being a college president was about—ot a complete one, of course—but I certainly recognized he’d been a scholar of renaissance and literature, and there he was, as the president of the university, who kind of opened my eyes to that. And in my career at the University of Massachusetts, I always had to focus on my work and research, but I also had the opportunity to [participate] in leadership and service, so I became a department chair and I liked it. When I had found out I was nominated to be dean at the University of South Carolina, I was very happy.”

As president, Pastides’ responsibilities include academic affairs in the five health sciences colleges, including: student welfare, faculty recruitment, promotion and tenure, and retention. He also serves as executive director of the S.C. Research Foundation, in which he oversees the distribution of indirect cost recovered funds, directs faculty research policies, and manages research administrative services.

Although he’s miles away from his first home in Astoria, Dr. Pastides said he visits New York frequently to visit his sister, Barbara and his son, Andrew, an Equity stage actor who’s currently engaged. His daughter Katharine is on the other side of the country, working as an education specialist at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California. When asked to describe his life narrative, Dr. Pastides said:  “It’s a story of hardworking parents who weren’t formally educated, but were smart and learned individuals, who used education as a vehicle to promote their children – and the rest is history.”

Thelma and David in St. Louis, MO

Photo from Modern Bride magazine (brides.com)

(Originally published in Modern Bride Magazine, 2008)

Answering a knock at the front door of her St. Louis home one day in May, Thelma Steward was a bit stunned to find a tuxedo-clad gentleman bearing an invitation with her name on it. But then her daughter appeared beside him, and Thelma discovered the invitation was to attend her own vow renewal—scheduled to take place five hours from then. The celebration was a surprise 30th anniversary gift from her husband, David, who had discreetly planned it over the course of two and a half months with the help of NYC event designer and 2004 MB Trendsetter Michelle Rago.

First, Thelma needed to choose from four wedding gowns (“She deserved to be queen for a day,” says David). She was also presented with a set of diamond jewelry by Roberto Coin and a team of beauty pros for the occasion—all gifts from her husband.

At 6:00 p.m., Thelma donned an ivory gown by Carmen Marc Valvo and walked down the aisle at Salem Methodist Church in St. Louis, to exchange vows withDavid for the second time. At their original wedding, just seven guests had been present; this time, as the couple’s longtime minister delivered the service, 80 of their family members and friends were there to witness the happy moment, and their children and son-in-law proudly stood with them, as bridal attendants.

Afterward, the couple convened at their favorite restaurant, Tony’s, for a spring-themed reception. Peonies were featured prominently, in butterfly- and bow-adorned centerpieces topping the tables, as well as on ribbons strung with peony blossoms and hung from light fixtures for a festive Maypole look. As the couple’s children and friends toasted them and recounted their history together, the crowd dined on grilled halibut, sirloin with roasted shallots and basil butter and pan-roasted chicken with green peppercorn semiglacé. Jazz vocalist Denise Thimes performed sultry tunes thoughout the evening, beginning with Nat King Cole’s “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” an apropos choice for the couple’s (second) first dance.

The whirlwind continued, culminating in another toast—the happy couple speaking of their love for each other—but that wasn’t the end of the celebration for Thelma and David; they made up for the honeymoon they never got to take after their wedding by spending a quiet week together at their Missouri lake home. —Eleni Kostopoulos